Thu 7/13-Sunday 8/26

Sun 7/23 @ 2-3:30PM

So Mary Urbas, who is the director of the gallery at Lakeland Community College, had this big idea, because when doesn’t she have a big idea? (Shows with more than 10 artists? Done!)  But this one was LITERALLY a big idea.

“This is an idea I have been contemplating for years,” she says. “The concept to show large-scale artworks started in conversations I had with [Artists] Archives [of the Western Reserve] Exhibition Committee Chair John Sargent, but it wasn’t until a meeting with former VAC Gallery Director Dan Simone that the whole thing became real! There’s power in numbers, so we decided to go citywide and invite BAYarts as a fourth west side location. We figured Go BIG or GO HOME!”

That became THE BIG @SS @RT SHOW with four different galleries showing oversized work by more than two dozen of the area’s most noted artists in a wide range of mediums. The galleries include Lakeland, Artists Archives, Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls and BAYArts in Bay Village.

Artists Archives, which is holding an opening reception this Thursday July 13, is pulling pieces from its collection of archived artists including David Haberman, Robert Jergens, George Kocar, Ken Nevadomi, Patricia Zinsmeister Parker, Libby Chaney, John Clague, Dexter Davis, John Jackson, and William Martin Jean (work pictured). The show will also include three large, suspended sculptures by Bea Mitchell including one 12 feet tall and a five-foot electrostatic print by Miller Horns, made up of Xeroxed photos. 

 On Sunday July 23, as part of THE BIG @SS @RT SHOW, Artists Archives and the Gallery at Lakeland are hosting THE BIG @SS @RT TALK at the Lakeland Community College Auditorium, featuring “the big heads of little arts organizations.” It’s a pecha kucha style event with each speaker showing 20 slides and speaking for 20 seconds about each.

Speakers include Pat Carroll Bonander (Willoughby Arts Collaborative), Monica Glasscock (Geauga Arts Council), Rebecca Gruss & Julie Polsinelli (Valley Arts Center), Nancy Heaton (BAYarts), Letitia Lopez (The Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center), Robin Robinson (Sankofa Fine Art Plus), Mary K. Thomas (The U & I of Euclid Avenue), Mindy Tousley (Artists Archives of the Western Reserve), Mary Urbas (The Gallery at Lakeland) and Antwoine Washington (Museum of Creative Human Art).

 For more information on the show and events, go artistsarchives.org or thebigassartshow.com.